Banished
by Steve Zissou
Summary: Felix's earliest memory is of the sound of Donald whispering descriptions of people in his ear. He can feel Donald's tiny, tiny wooden cane against his leg and he can feel Donald's tiny fingers weaving with his own and he knows Donald is very nervous. AU: What if both of them got banished and reverted to children? DarcyxLoki, JaneXThor


I was watching Thor and that part where Thor is arguing about taking care of the frost giants spoke to me. Odin says they will find the breech and take care of it but what would happen if Thor never bolted off to fight the giants? What if the breech was found and Thor still made enough fuss that the pair of brothers were banished together?

This also includes a what if? on the brothers being reverted to children and having to grow up again as mortals.

Thor/Jane and Loki/Darcy

Also, listened to "To Build a Home" by the Cinematic Orchestra on repeat while I wrote it.

* * *

_Then we will find the breech… and take care of it._

Felix's earliest memory is of the sound of Donald whispering descriptions of people in his ear. He can feel Donald's tiny, tiny wooden cane against his leg and he can feel Donald's tiny fingers weaving with his own and he knows Donald is very nervous. It's a big day. Everyone is nervous but of all the children lined up for adoption, it is these two who have the most reason to grow anxious.

"There is a woman and a man looking at us. She has kind eyes. She is smiling at you. He is too. They have dark hair, like you. You look like you belong to them. You look like their son."

Felix smiles at that and sits up straighter. He clutches Donald's hand tighter. He can't see his brother but he feels him there and that is all he needs to be a brave, big boy.

When the Blakes come to talk to Felix they want to talk to him alone.

"Come along, Donald," says one of the Sisters but Felix won't let go of Donald's hand. His clouded eyes widen, he is panicked.

"No, no, he can't go! No!"

"No, please, don't, can't I stay? Can't I-"

The brothers refused to let go. In the end, the Blakes adopt them both.

—

In high school they like to sit next to each other on the bleachers and study during their lunch period. Donald makes sure they eat their lunch because he is pushy about that sort of thing and without him pushing, Felix is sure to forget to eat and get too caught up trying to study.

Donald has a bad leg and he will never be able to try out for sports but he has a good attitude about it. He sits on the bleachers and in between eating an apple and reading over his homework he finds himself watching some of the varisty football players take the field and practice.

Donald is also very, very small for his age. If he had a good leg he would still be too small and too weak to try out for anything like football or track or baseball.

"Don? Donald?"

"Huh?"

"I've just asked you three times, you finished eating?"

"Oh. Yeah. Let's go in."

They both have canes. Donald uses his to supplement for the leg. Felix uses his to supplement for his lack of vision. People in the school are cruel and often call them names that somehow they think the brothers can not hear. Felix is normally the one to call them out on it where Donald tries to ignore them.

"You know," he says somedays to those making such remarks, "just because I can't see doesn't mean I cant hear and I'm pretty sure it was your girlfriend I just heard in the boy's bathroom giving Jordan Grazer a good time, maybe you should be worrying about him and not us."

More often than not Felix can get out of being beat up by Donald's easy words and ability to make people calm down. Either that or Felix learns to make noise and shout about people trying to beat up on cripples. Donald hates when he does that.

High school sucks but they both graduate top of their class. Their parents are very proud, that is all that matters.

—

In college, Donald finds his _thing, his calling_. He's been searching for his thing for a while now, Felix knows this. It never came to him until finally he is in college and people are too busy trying to graduate and get into the real world to be assholes to them.

Donald goes to Columbia.

Felix goes to MIT.

They both excell. Donald is an ace at anything medical related. He quickly rises in the ranks of potential canditates for med school and soon he is accepted in the ranks of physicians to be. It thrills Felix to hear it as much as it thrills Donald to hear that Felix is accepted easily into the linguistics program.

Donald sends Felix emails that are read out loud by a screenreading program on Felix's computer. Every week a little more of Donald's life changes for the better and then one week it comes.

_I met someone._

—-

Her name is Jane Foster and she is brilliant and kind and engrossed her work in such a way that Felix can't help but feel she really is perfect for Donald. They are both incredibly passionate people and Jane doesn't give a rip that Donald isn't some hulking, beast of a man or that he has his bad leg.

Felix is only slightly jealous but there is something about Jane being so pleased to meet him as well that he can't help but like the girl. He muses that under any different circumstances he might have been easily annoyed by her personality but Felix has long accepted that things are meant to be the way they are.

Still, the more he hears about how happy they are and how there are plans for Donald to join a practice in New Mexico just to be close to her research… he wishes for a long moment that there was someone for hm too. He wants what Donald has for all these years they have shared in everything.

They have shared in being scared children hoping for a kind couple to adopt them. They have shared in being unpopular freaks in high school. They have shared in being frighteningly smart young men in their respective studies in college and now Donald is finally out doing Felix in something and it frightens him to be left alone.

Will he be alone forever?

_Don't leave me,_ he wants to say. _Please, brother._

—-

New Mexico is impossibly dry and the heat doesn't do well with Felix. He likes it up North where winters are harsh and the summers are much cooler. He won't complain though, New Mexico is also quieter and so much more peaceful that he is glad for the brief change.

He also gets to meet Jane and reunite with his brother.

That night there is a feast. Donald cooks and Jane can't stop talking about her research and how much she has found out. She talks and talks and talks and Felix gets it. Donald likes to tell stories, he always has, but he likes to hear them as well, and the way Jane talks is so much like someone telling a beautiful story. It doesn't sound like boring research.

But it is the words of another he listens to more so than Jane Foster's talk of bridges and wormholes in space. He listens to the laugh of a girl sitting beside him. He listens to her make jokes and cut up like it's no big deal that she is an intern with no real concept of what Jane is talking about. The girl's wit is something to behold as is her very scent as is the warmth of her leg against his leg because they sit side by side at the table.

Her name is Darcy Lewis and she walks him to the one hotel in the small town where they have set up camp, where Donald works in the one family clinic. When they get to his room he feels maybe he drank a little too much wine because he says to her she has the most magnificent voice he has ever had the pleasure of hearing.

And maybe she has drank a little too much herself because she says she thinks he's the more handsome of the two brothers and she's been secretly dying to meet him since seeing a picture.

They make love in his hotel room and the sounds of her moans and cries are so damned heavenly. The scent of her skin where he nuzzles against her neck the next morning is overwhelmingly amazing. He could stay tangled up with her forever, he thinks, and he wonders if this is him finally catching up to his brother or-

No. This is his.

He is allowed to have his own glories. Let Donald have what is his, let him have what is his, and they will always be brothers but they are their own people.

And it is _this_ thought that is had the exact same moment that in the distance thunder rumbles and a hammer is found by it's rightful owner.

—-

Asgard is beautiful. Loki knows this from memories alone but seeing it with two eyes after nearly twenty odd years of being away … it is a sight sore eyes, literally. So is seeing his mother, and his father, and his brother. When Thor speaks all Loki can hear are words from Donald, whispers of what certain sets of parents look like and strong words of encouragement during rough times when he was sixteen again, and Donald's laugh when Jane makes a joke he likes and…

"Come, there is something you deserve to know."

Odin leads Loki away from his mother and brother into the depths of the treasure room.

"Do you understand?"

"Understand what? Why you did it?"

"Yes."

Loki can't make a reply. He doesn't have one. Yes, no, maybe, why why why why? He follows his father blindly into the room and down the path toward the casket and when they stop before it he is told.

It hurts. It hurts so, so much and it makes his whole chest ache and his heart pound and then he feels a hand on his shoulder and it's Thor, it's Donald, it's his brother and he knows and they all know and he clutches tight against his brother.

"I'm not a monster," he whispers, voice strained.

"No, you are Loki Odinson, and you are my son…"

"And my brother."

Loki's tears burn hot against his blue skin. His father is the one who holds him.

"I should have told you sooner."

—-

Jane and Darcy don't like to talk about it. It's harder for Jane, to be sure, but Darcy can't help but feel what she had, brief as it was, meant something too. It was like a candle burning bright and then snuffed out too quick. She doesn't say this though, it sounds really cheesy.

So she works. Jane works, she works, Erik works, and they work, work, work until one night there is a storm in the distance and it's so unnatural that it's gorgeous.

And the clouds are swirling madly and the sky is green and blue and purple…

And the thunder makes Jane want to cry. The two figures ermerging from the lowering storm cloud makes Darcy want to leap for joy.

—-

That night he tells her to call him Loki, call him Felix, it doesn't matter, call him hers but gods above and below just let _him_ call her _his_.

Yes, she says. Always.


End file.
